


Sticks and Stones and Rocks and Shields

by phenanthrene_blue



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: A little something implied, Atlanta Braves, Best Friends, Character Study, Epic Bromance, First Love, Fluff and Humor, Just google them okay?, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 23:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16649851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phenanthrene_blue/pseuds/phenanthrene_blue
Summary: Ronnie is just nineteen years old when he first meets Ozzie Albies.July. It’s the day after the Futures game, smack-dab in the middle of the Minor-League All-Star Break, when Ronnie gets the call that he’s being promoted to Triple-A.





	Sticks and Stones and Rocks and Shields

**2017.**

Ronnie is just nineteen years old when he first meets Ozzie Albies.

July. It’s the day after the Futures game, smack-dab in the middle of the Minor-League All-Star Break, when Ronnie gets the call that he’s being promoted to Triple-A.

Before he really has much of a chance to distill anything more than raw excitement out of his feelings (or even worry too much about his luggage) a couple of guys from Gwinnett whisk him away to North Carolina on a Wednesday afternoon to play the Charlotte Knights the next day.

The hotel was comfortable enough, and the clubhouse attendant was polite enough, and the couple of random pitchers he met as he crammed his gear into the empty locker were certainly very friendly, at least in the congratulatory, _we’ve-heard-all-about-you_ way that guys always are to a new call-up. 

It’s Thursday, around two hours before a 7:05PM first pitch, and Ronnie stands at the entrance to the Gwinnett dugout, looks out over the field, and breathes. 

_It’s the third park he’s breathed in this year._  

It’s overcast but bright, and oppressively, _stupidly_ hot, at least ninety-five degrees in the shade. He figures too much standing will cause first-game uneasiness to creep into his nerves, and decides to join a group of the G-Braves taking batting practice.

One of them calls him over and introduces himself as the shortstop-but also-sometimes-second-baseman. Ozzie ( _what a silly name!_ ) is the shortest one of the group - maybe five-foot-nine at most. He’s the youngest, barely out of his teens, with the darkest skin, the warmest eyes, and bits of his hair going unruly from the heat around the edge of his hat. _He looks the smallest bit like a childhood acquaintance of Ronnie’s from back home, a small, very distant echo of familiarity in this unfamiliar place._  

Ronnie’s so wrapped up in that tiny thought for a moment that he forgets what he’s doing and greets his new teammate in Spanish. Before Ronnie can realize it, Ozzie answers back. In Spanish, but in the lilting, awkwardly smiling way of someone who is still learning-but-not-yet-totally-proficient. Ronnie can’t quite place his accent. 

“Acuña. Our new outfielder from Mississippi.” Ozzie introduces him to the rest of the guys, before announcing rather abruptly that Ronnie’s the next guy up to bat. “Take a few hacks-” He says. “-we’ll see what you got.”

Ronnie’s muscles are cold, despite the fact that he’s overheating, and his new jersey feels too tight, and his first few swings are _terrible_ , wild cuts with no method, even though they can’t be throwing any harder than sixty. He manages to foul a couple pitches off; then a few more fly out weakly, but there’s so little power for too much _effort_ , and he’s not even sure what’s wrong.

“No. _No_.” Ozzie hurries in behind him. “You’re too uptight.”

Ronnie laughs, makes a stupid sound, and fouls off another pitch, which flies somewhere behind the backstop. “Nervous. _Adrenalina._ ” 

Ozzie raises his palm up to signal the pitcher. Ordinarily, Ronnie might find this patronizing, coming from someone he doesn’t know, but Ozzie seems friendly and helpful. 

“Your timing is no good. Your feet are closed.” Ozzie starts, and Ronnie looks down at his feet, the edges of the box, the angles, the distances, and doesn’t even see anything wrong. “Your hips. Open them. You’re slouching.”

Ozzie taps Ronnie’s right foot with the end of his bat, and Ronnie shifts. He feels big next to Ozzie, clunky and shy and young and all too self-aware. Ozzie sweeps his fingers forward toward his face. The pitch. Ronnie swings, and the ball just creeps over the left field wall and _thunks_ solidly into the empty bleachers.

“Again.” Ozzie says. “And _breathe_. Don’t think. Breathe. Your swing is _great._ ”

It’s only around twenty seconds until Ronnie’s destroying everything thrown his way, four-hundred feet, dead to center. They throw seventy, then eighty at him. The results don’t change. 

“Better, no?” Ozzie claps him on the shoulder. Ronnie nods silently.

“Whoa!” The hitting coach calls from somewhere behind them. “Good shit, kid! Go stretch it out. Oz, go with him.”

They walk together to the the outfield. ““By the way,” Ozzie smiles at him brightly, and it’s just the most welcoming thing Ronnie’s seen all day. “Lineup. You’re leadoff.”

His first night in Triple-A, in the top of the third, Ronnie hits a home run. It’s ninety-five, high, _right fucking at him!_ \- and he gets _all of it_.

It’s a different dugout than Mississippi: bigger, foreign, distant, on the other side of the break, and full of guys he’s known the entirety of four hours. The demeanor is always the same, though. Home run celebrations, Ronnie thinks, are a sort of universal language, always punctuated by high-fives and back slaps and someone dumping seeds down the back of his jersey. Or gum. Sometimes it’s the gum.

Ozzie isn’t playing tonight, but rather is serving as a sort of assistant assistant coach (as much as one can do at twenty years old), which means giving people pointers about their base-running, offering snacks, and bitching nonstop about the umpiring.

And giving Ronnie the hardest, most enthusiastic hug anyone’s ever given him. “Not so bad, _rook_!” Ozzie teases as he practically squeezes the breath, the nerves, the self-consciousness right out of him, right there. 

He gets two more hits, and they win, 13-4.

Then someone tells him that he and Ozzie are going to be roommates, so he doesn’t need to worry about getting back to the hotel. 

Ronnie thinks he’s probably going to like Gwinnett just fine. 

***

Ozzie gives him the nickname _Hermanito_ , which means _little brother_ , even though Ronnie is considerably bigger.

Ozzie takes him out for dinner the weekend of his home debut, and the second night after that, and the third night after that. Then they win again, go to a teammate’s house on a Friday, and drink until Ronnie feels himself opening up, feels the guard put up by playing for three different teams in a season start to slip, to _lower_ , finally.

Soon, it’s 2AM, and it’s the first time that Ronnie, still a couple years underage, has ever been actually _drunk_ , and Ozzie thinks it’s the _funniest goddamn thing he’s ever seen._

_They start talking. A lot. On the back of the bus, and in the hotel lobbies, the clubhouse, the batting cages, and their too-small apartment. Sometimes in English, but sometimes in Ozzie’s stunted, less-than-totally-complete Spanish, which Ozzie likes, because he can practice, and Ronnie likes, because he can articulate things better. Sometimes a mixture of both. It makes him feel less_ introverted _that way._

Ozzie is the neat one, who uses fabric softener and tries to cook, albeit pretty poorly. Ronnie is a teenager, leaving dirty dishes in the sink, and on the coffee table, and on the floor next to the bathroom (who does that?) and tossing his clothes all over the floor and chairs, and it drives Ozzie up the wall. But he lets it go, and they watch things together instead. _They watch videos of themselves and compliment each others’ swings, steals, and catches, and when they don’t want to do that, they watch cartoons with Spanish subtitles._

_They text, when they should be sleeping, even though Ozzie’s bedroom is right across from his. Late at night, and at ridiculous times in the morning before noon games, and even when Ronnie wakes up, he’s got more texts. They text each other music videos, and pictures of their families, and the bad jokes and memes and pranks that, as Ronnie learns quickly, Ozzie is extraordinarily fond of._

When Ozzie gets home first, he texts Ronnie, to make sure he’s safe out there.

The next day, when Ronnie is exhausted and lumbers around third like he’s dragging bricks, Ozzie jumps out of the dugout when Ronnie gets _home_ , to make sure he’s _really_ safe.

He is.

Ozzie hugs him again, and this time Ronnie hugs him back, as hard as he can, as _honestly_ as he’s able to hug someone he’s known for two weeks but somehow feels like he’s known _longer. Teammates come, and teammates go, seasons wax and wane in their cycle of death and eternal rebirth, or something, and Ronnie goes on, on, like this, has gone on since he was_ fifteen _, but this - this is somehow different. He doesn’t even really understand it, or how it all fits together, but he likes it._

“Nice job, li’l bro.” Ozzie mumbles into Ronnie’s chest. _In English this time._

He’s part of a team again, one step closer, and he can be himself, and Gwinnett keeps winning, and Ozzie is his _friend_ , and that - and not the hits, not the homers, not the record or the standings or the prospect rankings - is all that matters.

***

And then, three weeks after Ronnie joins the Triple-A club _,_ Ozzie gets called up to Atlanta.

It wasn’t even supposed to happen this year, but suddenly, the news is everywhere; Ozhaino “Ozzie” Albies, one of the _youngest_ prospects to make it to the Bigs, will play second base for the Atlanta Braves.

Of course Ronnie’s happy for Ozzie, like the whole team is. He celebrates with him. He points out his name in the news on ESPN. He helps him pack some of his things. He vows that he’s going to hit a grand slam in the next game for him, and steal home for him, and every other innocent, baseball-related devotion he can think of. He prays for him. He hugs him, and hugs him, and _hugs_ him until he’s absolutely certain he has to let go. He means it - every word and every gesture. He’s happy for him.

But inside, below every bit of happiness and pride he _knows_ he feels,somewhere in his very infrastructure, Ronnie is tremendously sad. 

It’s just him in the apartment now. His eyes keep flitting intermittently toward the closed door of Ozzie’s bedroom. 

_Any minute now, he’ll get a text that his roommate is on his way home._

For the first, real time in his life, Ronnie is in denial.

He doesn’t even realize how much he is, until three days later, when he’s sitting in the dugout by himself, at the very end of the bench. It’s the bottom of the fourth, and rain had rolled in from seemingly nowhere. Big raindrops pound on the dugout roof like a thousand pebbles, dripping from the railing, ruining the infield, and ensuring that it’s probably bullpen usage the rest of the night.

It’s quiet, the only sound the relentless hammering of the rain, and Ronnie finally realizes that _Ozzie is gone._ He slumps over and covers his eyes because he thinks he might actually cry.

“Ron, it’s not the end of the world, dude.” A voice, distant, somewhere from the right. One of the catchers. “I know you don’t talk much, and fuck, I miss him too, but this happens. The key’s just never getting too attached, ya know?”

Ronnie says nothing. _Is he really that transparent?_

“Keep doing your thing, and you’ll be up there soon. Shit, you got a better chance than any of the rest of us.” _A mildly disappointed sigh._ “Assuming we don’t all drown here tonight.”

The rain stops eventually.

A bad pitch. A hanging curveball, or something. Upper 70s; didn’t break the way it was supposed to. Ronnie hits another home run. It’s hard and angry, like he’s got something to prove.

*** 

In September, the minor league season ends, and when he can, Ronnie watches the Braves.

He watches them on mute, preferring to focus, and try and imagine what it sounds like in his head.

This time, it’s a night game, and Ronnie lies on his bed, elbow-deep in the comforter, the only light in the room the soft flicker of the television.

This time, Ozzie hits a home run. Ninety-eight, _right down the can_ , men on first and third. It’s consummate, _professional;_ Ozzie turns it around with his sweet, quick stroke, just power on power, and everyone exits stage left.

Ronnie feels nothing but admiration (although, perhaps, it is streaked with a little jealousy). Ozzie is only maybe forty miles away, almost close enough that Ronnie could reach out and celebrate there with him, but through the television, it seems like forty-thousand miles. Ozzie is in the stars somewhere, and Ronnie is here, in Gwinnett County, Georgia, amongst all the loneliness and insecurity of Earth.

It’s not fair, and when Ronnie thinks of _how far away_ everything seems, he flops over sideways on the bed, half-groaning and half-sighing, banging his elbow hard into the case of his phone.

He hasn’t gotten a text in ten days.

_Nice hit. Miss you_. He thumbs into the screen, quickly, like he expects Ozzie’s going to see it the moment he takes his batting gloves off.

When he wakes up at 9AM, TV now playing one of the morning talk shows on MLB network, he’s got a text back.

_I always miss you, Hermanito._

_He lets himself feel for a few minutes, warm and bittersweet, and honestly, beneath that things get a bit strange and unknown, but he’ll allow it, for just one more moment._

But now Ronnie has to pack. He’s going to Arizona in two days, where he will try and breathe, again, in the fourth ballpark of his season.

***

**2018.**

Spring, when it finally does come, is a relief.

As soon as Ronnie finds out he’s being invited to spring training with the _Atlanta_ Braves, he runs. He runs throughout the entire first part of February. Then, he runs as he’s throwing his stuff in his duffel bag. He runs out of his place, runs to the car, and runs through the terminal of the airport. He runs off the plane on the other side, and some part of him doesn’t _stop_ running, in one way or another, until he’s on the field again.

_Baseball is back._

Some little part in the chaos of Ronnie’s universe has been returned to order, here, standing on the the unsullied, bright green grass of the outfield. His head is tilted back and his eyes are closed, feeling a wind from the north with just the smallest nip, a reminder of late February.

“Aye! Roonnn! _!_ ” he recognizes the voice from in front of him, comically drawing out his name, immediately.

_There had been texts, but Ronnie realizes very rapidly that texts are no substitute for actual_ company.

Then he runs more, and Ozzie runs at him, into him, jumping into his arms, and Ronnie is so immediately overjoyed that he lifts Ozzie clean off the ground, his growing smile turned up toward the bright Florida sky.

Big-League Ozzie is a little different. He has a leather jacket and a couple of new tattoos, and he’s grown his hair out enough to tie into a frizzy stub of a ponytail. He has a nice watch, and a Jeep, and a Brazilian girl that he hangs out with sometimes - _just good friends, though_ \- he tells Ronnie. His Spanish has improved, if only just a little bit.

But his words are still encouraging, and his smile could still light up the entire goddamn county.

_So no, nothing had_ really _changed._  

***

They’re roommates again.

Ronnie sleeps in annoyingly late on night game days. Ozzie still grouses about the dishes, which, at least, are no longer left outside the bathroom.

They leave the windows open in the evening, enjoying the way the last remnants of the cold off-season whip into mad little breezes that rattle the screens. They watch movies, some good comedies and bad comedies, together on the couch, late at night, when they’re both sore and exhausted from practices and hard workouts and long games, and they laugh. Sometimes Ozzie scoots over, his hip pressing into Ronnie’s thigh, and the next step is always where Ozzie’s head falls gently onto Ronnie’s shoulder. Ronnie can smell whatever that _stuff_ is that Ozzie puts in his hair, and it makes him feel relaxed, vulnerable, almost sleepy. Eventually, he puts his arm around Ozzie, cupping his hand over his teammate’s shoulder.

They sit like this for _hours_ , some nights.

He thinks about it sometimes, but he doesn’t really have to. It’s the _familiarity_ that gets Ronnie. Familiarity like this is easy, natural; _beyond_ welcome, and when Ronnie does think about it, the more he realizes that becoming someone’s friend, someone’s _brother_ , like this, is much like a getting good hit. It’s fast and _immensely_ satisfying, and when it happens, well, you just _know_ it. And he just knows it.

Like everyone predicted, Ronnie blows the doors off of spring training.

He throws guys out at the plate from two-hundred feet deep in left. From two-hundred-feet deep in right (he’s…still working on centerfield). He steals every other game. He robs some guy from Detroit of a home run and sticks the landing. He runs as fast as he ever has. And he hits, and hits, and _hits_. He thinks he cracks .400, although he’s made a habit of ignoring the statistics. These home runs are different, simple and automatic and _all the time._ Fastballs, and obvious changeups, and not-so-obvious changeups, and sliders that people aren’t _supposed_ to hit, especially with exit velocities of one-hundred-and-fourteen miles per hour. Hits that actually make the _news._

_Familiarity._ Ozzie always waits at the top of the dugout stairs whenever Ronnie crosses home plate, and Ronnie just says nothing and smiles at him, feeling his eyes light up behind his shades, thinking maybe, _someday_ , he can do this in Atlanta. _He is locked in; plugged in. He_ will _do this._

_Ozzie will get on before him. He’ll hit a home run, and he and Ozzie can go_ home _together. How it is supposed to be._

“You…really think so?” Ronnie asks, one night after a game. “This soon?”

“Yeah. Soon. Absolutely” Ozzie replies, grabbing Ronnie around the waist from behind, rocking him a little in his arms in a silly way. “Of course, _idiota_.” He says, lightheartedly pushing his face into Ronnie’s spine. “ _Si._ _Lo sé_ , _Hermanito._ ”

On March 19th, Ronnie is re-assigned to minor league camp.

After all the commotion, he will start the season in Gwinnett. Something legal-sounding about years of control and contracts.

_Shit._

*** 

They call themselves the Gwinnett Stripers now, the familiar tomahawk logo of the Braves replaced by…a fish. It makes everything seem all the more distant, like he’s somehow whacking further back into the bushes instead of forward, toward _actually being a Brave_.

Ronnie knows he shouldn’t be frustrated. He’s an adult, he’s a grown man, and this - well, this comes with the territory.

But he _is_ frustrated, being back _here_ , sitting in the same crummy dugout, waiting out yet _another_ rain delay, the second of the week, and this time, in the bottom of the seventh. He swears _it does nothing but rain in fucking Gwinnett County._ It’s April, and this rain is cold, and probably six-hundred people had come to see the game. Ronnie wouldn’t even care if they just called the damn thing already, even though they’re losing.

It’s the loneliest start to a season that Ronnie has ever had.

He wonders if it’s raining down in Atlanta too, and when he remembers last season, remembers spring training, remembers _Ozzie_ , he just aches inside. It’s profound, something he’s never felt before, and he can actually, physically _feel_ it in the palms of his hands, and stuck in his throat, like it might choke him. It’s almost frightening, something he has to actively disabuse himself of.

This time, he swings and misses. At first, he thinks maybe he’s just twisting, or slouching, or standing with his hips too closed again, but something’s not right.

He misses with the bases empty. He misses with the bases loaded. He wails, whiffs, rips, hacks, golfs, cuts, damn near corkscrews himself into the dirt in frustration - he just doesn’t actually _hit_ the baseball.

“You gotta relax, Acuña.” The hitting coach tries to talk him through it after batting practice. “It’s all okay. Just relax, and pretend I’m not even watching.” He watches Ronnie’s swing, again, and _again_ , but everything feels too examining, unwelcome, forced, even though he’s like two-for-God-only-knows-what over the past ten games and _needs his ass kicked_.

The coach just kind of knots his face in confusion. “Something bugging you? You wanna talk?”

_What would he even say? He’s freezing, exhausted, confused, mired in this slump, and he misses his friend_ so badly _that he thinks it’s starting to sink him from the inside?_

He’s not comfortable saying it in English, for one. The assistant hitting coach speaks Spanish, and Ronnie gives a hand-waving explanation of _fatiga_ and _insomnio_ and a bunch of other half-truths. The assistant then walks over to the hitting coach. He says a few words, and then he makes the gesture where he pokes himself in the temple a couple of times.

_No shit, it’s all in Ronnie’s head._

Ronnie gets two days off. It helps, a little, in some ways.

***

Damon Berryhill, the manager of the Gwinnett club, is in the greying part of his fifties, but his large frame and broad shoulders still mark him as a former pro catcher.

He doesn’t look nearly so imposing, hunched behind the wall of bobbleheads and papers that he calls a desk, however.

It’s Tuesday, April 24th, at 10PM. Berryhill’s office is over-air conditioned but somehow too humid. The only sound Ronnie can focus on is a clock ticking somewhere, and the rumble of a desk chair over carpet as the two assistant coaches pull up next to where Berryhill is sitting.

“Do you know why we’re here, Ron?”

Ronnie shakes his head no.

“Really?”

“No.” Ronnie laughs uneasily. “Really.”

_He actually doesn’t know, but it seems serious, and the anxiety in his stomach is already causing too much speculation and catastrophizing. To lecture him about his hitting, even though he’s coming around again? Or worse - to send him back down to Mississippi?_

“Well, I got a call from Brian Snitker a couple hours ago.” Berryhill starts. “You know who that is, right?”

A nod.

“And then I got a call from some people more important than Brian-”he smiles. “-but don’t tell him I said that.”

Two more nods. 

A piece of paper, folded in thirds, passed across the desk. Ronnie scans it quickly, and can barely believe what he’s reading.

“You’re the new left fielder for the Atlanta Braves, kiddo.” Berryhill slaps him on the back of the hand animatedly. “Congrats.”

And he gets three hugs, and three different sets of well-wishes, and three different jokes about how they hope they never see him again before it’s even _registered._

He has to be dreaming, or maybe hallucinating. Or maybe he’s actually dead, and he’s merely run across three messengers from heaven. He can’t stop smiling.

“So. First, we’re gonna get some people on the phone here that’ll get your ass up to Cincinnati for tomorrow.”

Wait. _Tomorrow?_

_This time, Ronnie can’t be bothered with texting. He calls instead._

***

Suddenly, it’s the 25th.

Ronnie is _so_ excited that he sleeps maybe forty-five minutes the night before. It all happens so fast, a warp-speed blur of phone calls, and a short flight, and meetings and handshakes, and _oh, you’re wearing number thirteen._ Then, literally fourteen hours after they tell him, it’s just after noon in Cincinnati, and it’s time to play.

The sky is blue, beautiful and peppered with fluffy clouds. It’s loud, and there are so many people milling around outside the park, and everything smells overwhelmingly like popcorn and grilled onions. The lineup card in the dugout is a huge poster, with handwritten calligraphy script announcing that he will be playing left, and batting sixth.

_It’s actually happening._

Ronnie, having just noticed that the stadium has _three_ decks, is now starting to stumble on the tightrope between excitement and nervousness. For a little while, he feels like he might actually throw up.

Until he sees Ozzie, chewing gum and blowing bubbles, leaning lazily over the dugout railing. As if by reflex, Ronnie throws his arms around him, not caring that he’s still wearing his glove or that there are probably a dozen cameras pointed in his direction. At first, Ozzie tries to buck him off, just for comedy’s sake, but then he hugs him back, warmly and strongly, like he always did, and Ronnie’s missed it, missed _him_ so much that he couldn’t even say it if he tried. Ozzie tells him how glad he is that he’s finally _here_ , how awesome it’s going to be playing together, and a million other things that are encouraging, and perhaps, slightly embarrassing, like the part about how he’ll be Rookie of the Year. Finally. _Finally!_

Ronnie isn’t sure what he looked forward to more; being called up itself, or _this_ , and in a few minutes his head is ringing, the anticipation of everything flickering and shimmering away inside him. He can’t stop himself - he runs to the top of the stairs, throws his arms out, and screams up at the sky. _Finally._

Ozzie and the shortstop, Johan, laugh behind him. “ _Adrenalina!_ ” Ozzie yells out, half explanation and half for its own sake.

Ronald Acuña will never forget his Major League debut. Sure, he only goes 1-for-5, but in the top of the 8th, Suzuki singles him home to tie the game.

It’s a different dugout than Gwinnett: even bigger, more foreign, on the other side of a barrier that seemed insurmountable, but it’s somehow comfortable in an unassuming way. There are more places to sit and stand and _interact_ and - of course - more _snacks_. It _is_ the Majors after all. But the universal language of fist pumps and chest-bumps and _fuck yeahs_ is, as always, still spoken.

Ozzie scores the winning run in the top of the ninth, and a pitcher whom Ronnie hasn’t even been introduced to yet gets the save.

Yes, Ronnie realizes that Cincinnati is a _terrible_ club this year, but a win is a win in the Majors, and it’s his _first. He’s happy,_ relaxed enough to _talk_ to the reporters and the writers afterwards, but he keeps his answers short and watches the time.

Because just like after his debut in Gwinnett, Ozzie takes him out to dinner. The restaurants in Atlanta are much, _much_ nicer - places with candles and fifteen-dollar cocktails that Ronnie can’t even order yet.

The very next night, Ronnie hits a home run - his first as a Brave. Top of the second. It’s a slider that backs up, eighty-eight, as big as a beach ball coming over the plate, and the next thing Ronnie knows, it’s four-hundred-and-sixteen feet into the left-field stands. Tonight, his unflappable stoicism breaks, and he’s _all_ swagger and confidence. Tonight he gets to enjoy it.

***

Ronnie likes his teammates immediately. Ender and Johan have great stories. Freddie is habitually up to no good, but his smile always seems to give away whatever he’s up to. Folty is fun to be around, a real enthusiastic competitor, and has the cutest kid, whom his wife brings to the clubhouse sometimes. Kurt is the wily veteran, always willing to mentor anyone who comes his way. Nick is, well, overly serious about damn near everything, but loses his shit in a flurry of whoops and giggles whenever he gets a good hit.

And Ozzie is the best friend he’s ever had. 

Ozzie genuinely likes making Ronnie laugh, constantly sharing stupid, lighthearted things he finds on YouTube and Instagram, and always beginning with “Oh, you’ll like _this_.”

And then the _pranks_ start. Ronnie swears that ninety-five percent of Ozzie’s mental energy is dedicated to coming up with new ways to screw with him. It’s the little things at first: the tied-together shoelaces, the rubber snake in the clubhouse drink cooler, and then the stupid thing somehow ends up in Ronnie’s refrigerator.

They have separate apartments now, but Ozzie is still over multiple times per week. So _of course_ it would end up in the fridge.

Ozzie sends texts full of horrible puns. Ozzie gives him bunny ears in every picture taken of the two of them. Ozzie dumps the seeds on Ronnie’s head. Ozzie pulls Ronnie’s hair when he’s not expecting it, causing him to yell a torrent of curse-words in Spanish after him as he runs away. Ronnie responds and pulls mockingly on the scruffy little tuft of a beard that Ozzie’s been trying to grow. Ozzie puts him in a surprise choke-hold from behind, and then he does the same thing, knocking his hat off in the process, when Ronnie is being interviewed. Ronnie tries to exact revenge, but one of his teammates spoils it, yelling “Oz, shit, look out!” and his choke-hold ends up being more of a clownish half-tackle that sends them both tipping over onto the bench.

The next time Ronnie hits a home run, Ozzie thrusts the handle of his bat under Ronnie’s nose, like a microphone, and demands a proper interview. In front of everybody. He obliges, clumsily, and in English, and with a smile so hard that it makes his cheeks hurt.

Ozzie pretends he’s in _Street Fighter_ , coming at Ronnie with a flying kick and wild chops of his fists. Ronnie fights back, and this particular spectacle ends with them chasing each other around the infield. Yeah, he’s sure that this one will make its way onto the Internet.

Then Ronnie is _exhausted_ , catching a nap on the plane, the blanket of quiet music coming through his headphones just enough to put him out for a few minutes. He wakes up when he feels the soft pad of someone’s thumb pressing into his lower lip. It’s certainly not…unpleasant, but it wakes him up, and there’s Ozzie, pulling his thumb away, a little quirk in his smile. He’s recording it all with his phone. _Cabrón._

The Braves keep winning, and soon pull ahead of the Nationals and Phillies. Everyone, everywhere, talks about the rebuild, the schedule, the process, the meteoric rise of the new NL East leaders, and how Albies and Acuña, Atlanta’s _tour de force_ , the Baby Braves - are the spark, the catalyst that drives the whole thing. 

Ozzie bats leadoff most of the time. Ronnie is always second, right behind him, and there’s a sort of effortless synchronicity in it. As he always wanted, he brings Ozzie home. Again, and again, and again, and _again_.

Then he brings Ozzie home with him. They order a pizza and watch late-night comedy. As he succumbs to heaviness and sleepiness, Ronnie feels Ozzie’s fingers curl around his hand. It’s so _nice_ , so _uncorrupted_ , that Ronnie doesn’t question it.

They both nod off on the couch, and wake up to informercials and a cloudy day outside.

The next game, Ozzie does the same thing in between the third and fourth innings. Just out of the blue, Ozzie’s palm is on his, Ozzie’s smaller fingers fitting in between his own.

_He’s home._  

***

Ozzie has a _bad_ day. He goes 0-for-4 and then completely fumbles a wimpy grounder hit right to him. Then he misplaces his favorite glove. Then he trips and falls, ass-first, down the dugout stairs, and gets laughed at. Then the bullpen blows it, spectacularly. And then the game’s over, a total bullshit loss, and lightning starts to prickle the edges of the clouds, something everyone wishes had happened in the seventh.

Ozzie does not get mad often, but tonight he has been absolutely _steaming_ around the clubhouse, groaning and swearing under his breath.

_It was Freddie’s idea. Ronnie knows the whole thing was Freddie’s idea, because Freddie, loving jokes almost as much as Ozzie, knows how to do these things. Ronnie merely threw his full enthusiasm behind it._

When Ronnie gets back to the clubhouse, Ozzie is trying to organize the bin of random gear in his locker. He’s still so worked up that it’s become an exercise in futility, as he’s making more of a mess of it than when he started.

Ronnie gets his attention by smacking him on the back the head. “What?” Ozzie asks, his features softening a little. “ _Ahora que?_ ” Ozzie’s pretty fluent now, but can’t ever decide whether to speak English or Spanish, especially when he’s frustrated.

Ronnie rolls up both his pant-legs at once to show off his socks. Socks, _with Ozzie’s face on them._ Of course, he has to present them without any comment but a cheeky grin.

Ozzie drops the entire bin of gear, and he just _loses it_. Behind them, Freddie runs out of the room, laughing so hard he can barely stay upright, and Ronnie’s heart swells with the pride of, for _once_ , beating Ozzie at his own game.

“This, this was _you_ , wasn’t it?” Ozzie hollers after Freddie.

_Ronnie will be sure to save that one for the playoffs, if they make it there._

Several days later, however, Ronnie feels like his day is taking a similar trajectory. It’s too goddamn hot, too bright, his shoulders ache, and the Braves can’t hit to save their lives. Ronnie is standing in the dugout, his elbows settling down on the railing as he watches the whole miserable story unfolding before him.

Ozzie seems to be able to sense, in these moments where his teammate is quiet and blank like this, that something is _off_ about Ronnie.

He was talking to one of the coaches, but saw Ronnie standing far away, _alone_ , and walked over. Ozzie jerks Ronnie’s left arm up, trying to force it around his shoulders, but Ronnie just lets his arm go limp and tries to swat his hand away.

But Ozzie is persistent, and just tries _again_. He pulls him closer this time and grabs his hand, his fingers brushing over Ronnie’s knuckles. Ronnie feels himself start to unwind in the moment where Ozzie’s fingers lace with his.

Then Ozzie leans over and pushes his lips into the warmest part of Ronnie’s wrist.

It lasts no more than a second, but Ronnie feels his face suddenly burn hotter than the Georgia sun in late June.

***

Late June becomes early July, and early July becomes late July. The Braves push into first, just barely outpacing Washington and Philadelphia. Ozzie takes his Brazilian friend to the All-Star Gala. Ronnie plays video games. The Foltynewiczs have a Welcome-Back-From-The-Break party at their house.

The _guard_ is gone, now, and Ronnie talks, no matter the language. He smiles, he loves being introduced, he hugs the wives and kids, and he raves about the food.

Then, as people his age do, Ronnie gets ridiculously, _astronomically_ drunk for the second time in his life.

The next day, when they play the Dodgers, Ronnie is _so_ hung over. Not-sure-which-end-of-the-bat-goes-toward-the-ball hung over. He’s hiding it well, however, and he no longer feels like he’s going to be sick by the fourth inning.

Atlanta is up 4-0 headed into the bottom of the sixth, but Ronnie’s head now feels like a softball that’s been used for batting practice by the entire team. He flops down on the bench, covering his eyes, which are oversensitive even in the shade of the empty dugout. Every sound in the place makes Ronnie _wince_.

Ozzie, not up to bat again until the lineup turns over, is sitting up on the back of the bench, staring blankly ahead and tapping a slow rhythm on the seat with his foot.

“Come here.” He says to Ronnie, his voice low. “And I will help.”

Ronnie notices that teammate doesn’t move, other than spreading his knees slightly, pointing between them, and flashing a cocky half-grin. Ronnie slides over, turns around, and kneels on the bench, fitting himself comfortably between Ozzie’s thighs.

“Like this.” Ozzie says, pulling Ronnie close to him, squeezing him slightly between his knees. Ronnie sighs, leaning forward, and he feels one of Ozzie’s heavy gold chains pressing into the bridge of his nose.

Slowly, Ozzie begins to massage his temples, and then upward, his fingers pressing firmly into Ronnie’s scalp. He pets Ronnie’s hair, moving in slow circles, and rubs Ronnie’s forehead, his eyebrows, the tense area behind his ears. Ronnie doesn’t even care _who’s watching_ , what _anyone_ might think anymore, not that anyone’s asked.

Ozzie’s hands feel _incredible_ , soft and strong, with both his thumbs dragging adroitly down Ronnie’s neck, right into the knotted-up junction where his neck meets his shoulders.

“Like _this_.” Ozzie whispers, tilting Ronnie’s head to the side for better access. Ronnie presses his cheek against Ozzie’s chest, nudges in affectionately, and sighs, enjoying his teammate’s mere _presence_. He’s so _gentle_ , and Ronnie can hear and _feel_ Ozzie’s heartbeat, slow and steady and reassuring, and then he becomes aware of his own blood starting to pound in his ears alongside it.

He actually doesn’t want to get up. Even though the inning has just ended, and a commotion is beginning behind them, Ronnie _doesn’t_ want to play right now. He wants to stay like _this_ , on the bench, nestled against Ozzie for just a little bit longer.

_It’s all so silly, this game, where Ronnie is just a kid, swinging a stick at a hard-thrown stone._

_But Ozzie is his rock, his shield, and_ sticks and stones mean _nothing right now_ , but rocks and shields are _forever_.

Another home run. A two-seamer in an opportune location; maybe a miscommunication between the pitcher and catcher. Ronnie straight-up _clobbers_ it, three-hundred-seventy-something feet out and what seems like two miles up. As he runs the bases, he watches it come down, lingers on the descent of its graceful parabola toward the bleachers. 

Falling.

_Falling._

***

The stretch. That period between mid-August and the end of September.

The batting order has been rearranged, and like he did in Gwinnett, Ronnie now bats leadoff, where he hits eight home runs in a matter of weeks.

Some guy from Pittsburgh gives him the nickname “ _El Abusador_ ,” which Ronnie rolls his eyes at, because it really doesn’t suit his personality at all - _except_ for when he bats leadoff.

The Braves are still in first, and even further so than before. The NL East title looks likely: Philadelphia’s starting pitching is showing cracks, the Nationals are selling off their bullpen to anyone who will make them an offer, and the Mets are making a mighty case for their new manager to lose his job at any given seventh-inning stretch. 

The Miami Marlins, in dead last, are positively drowning in their own ineptitude, but, starting tonight, they have to play out the rest of the season anyway.

It’s a 7PM game, and it’s 7PM on the dot when Ronnie takes a couple of lazy practice swings and steps into the box, ready for the first pitch. Ureña starts his delivery and Ronnie thinks, maybe it will be a fastball with a pathetically low spin rate, or a cutter that doesn’t cut, or something else, well, _abusable_ , for his fourth game in a row.

But instead it’s ninety-seven, rough, _retaliatory_ , and so fast he can’t get out of the way before the ball hits him flush in the elbow. There’s a gruesome _smack_ , and sickening, searing pain that sends Ronnie flailing from the box and straight down the third base line, where he spikes his helmet, howls; _writhes_.

His teammates are having none of it, and everyone flies out of the dugout, with Coach Brian leading the charge. There’s pushing and shoving, and Brian is red and irate in the Miami manager’s face, and in the umpire’s face, and there’s a scrum on the pitcher’s mound and several ejections. Ronnie half-walks, half-crawls back to the box. The pain stabs down his arm, ripping inside all the way to down his fingernails, forcing him down into a crouch. When the trainer checks him out, he falls right onto his behind, whimpering into his elbow.

Then more people run in. Someone’s arm is around him, but he’s not even sure whose.

Footsteps, and a series of nasty words from a familiar voice, and when he opens his eyes, Ozzie is there, kneeling across from him, his eyes blown wide with concern.

Ronnie reaches out for Ozzie’s hand, his dark blue batting glove contrasting with his teammate’s bright red one.

“ _Esta bien_.” Ozzie breathes, running the back of his other hand up Ronnie’s arm. “ _Esta bien, esta bien, esta bien._ ”

Then in English: “God, I will fucking _kill_ that guy.”

It was the hardest first pitch that Ureña had _ever_ thrown, and Ronnie can’t finish the inning, let alone the game.

The tests and the X-rays are all, fortunately, negative, to everyone’s relief. His elbow still is _killing_ him, the swelling and throbbing making his fingers feel like numb sausages stuck to a balloon.

Ozzie stays with him all night. Ronnie is hot and groggy from whatever the doctor gave him for the pain, and blacks out in bed just as soon as he gets there. When he wakes up, the huge ice pack around his elbow has melted and leaked, soaking his t-shirt and sweatpants and the blanket.

And he sees that the back of Ozzie’s shirt is wet too, _really_ wet, even though Ozzie is curled several feet away from him, sleeping toward the wall.

***

**The Playoffs.**

_The mountains or the beach? Hiking boots or swim trunks? Los Angeles or Colorado? Dodgers or Rockies?_

Brian tells them, repeatedly and explicitly, that he doesn’t want them distracted, doesn’t want them even _thinking_ that way, until they clinch. _Get the last damn out_ , he says, _and then we can talk about it_.

Nonetheless, that’s the question on everyone’s mind in the clubhouse as the second week of September ends. _Who are we gonna play in October?_

But it’s September twenty-second, they’re playing the Phillies in an hour, and _that’s all they’re supposed to focus on,_ even though they’re all on the cusp of going to the playoffs for the first time in five years, which, to half the city, might as well be five decades.

The game, itself, is about as drama-free as anyone could hope. The Braves jump Arrieta early, and Folty cruises along on the mound, actually no-hitting Philadelphia into the seventh, and Atlanta holds a 4-0 lead.

And then the eighth inning happens, because shit _always_ seems to happen in the eighth inning: two walks, a single, an unfortunate pitching change, and a couple more hits make it 4-3.

Now, it’s the top of the ninth, and it’s 5-3. Arodys makes short work of the first two batters. Ronnie is standing in left field, head racing, listening to the crowd chanting, _roaring_ to an absolute crescendo as he watches Ozzie pacing nervously around second.

There’s the familiar crack of maple on leather, and the ball’s halfway up to the sun, but Ronnie knows just where to camp himself under it and the ball falls with a soft _plop_ into his glove, really without much effort at all.

_It’s the last damn out._

The crowd erupts; the fireworks start. Between second and first, Ozzie raises his arms triumphantly. 

Ronnie’s never been to a real playoff celebration before. A Minor-League playoff celebration means the team gets Chick-Fil-A and maybe a few will get their coveted papers-folded-in-thirds. A Major-League playoff celebration means they have to put tarps over the walls and the clubhouse will need new carpets in the morning and at least one pitcher will heave in the trash can before the night is over.

The whole room smells like booze, and there’s loud club rap pounding away at top volume, and everyone’s got new hats and shirts. Someone’s set up a disco ball, and the whole team is bumping and jostling and doing the silly tomahawk chop, showing off for the cameras. Brian, having had a couple of beers himself, is standing on one of the benches yelling about how _the goddamn Atlanta Braves are back in the goddamn playoffs_ , and _he’s so goddamn proud!_ God _damn!_  

Ronnie’s a little self-conscious about drinking in front of the coaches, so he dances and lets himself be sprayed with champagne for a while.

“Brought you something!” Ronnie yells, above the music, when he finally finds Ozzie. He reaches under his shirt and produces the baseball. _The last out from the clinching game._ The team will probably want _that_ , for some display case in someone’s stuffy office, but for now, it is Ronnie’s, _and it is for Ozzie._

Ozzie just _beams at him_ , shaking his head slightly in amusement, before tucking the ball somewhere behind him. “Brought you something too, li’l bro. We’ll trade!”

He whips out a bottle. _Sparkling grape juice_ , he explains. _Because you’re not twenty-one._ Yes, this _pendejo_ has actually brought him sparkling grape juice.

Ronnie laughs, and laughs, and _laughs_ until his sides hurt. He shakes the bottle as hard as he can, pulls Ozzie up against him, and then pops the cork and sprays it all over them both.

They’re going to the playoffs. It’s a good night.

The Braves wait eight more days.

Eight more days of meaningless games, games that seem to exist just for stat-padding, bizarre defensive alignments, and lineup Tetris, before they figure out who they’re going to draw.

Finally, the Dodgers and Rockies play a tiebreaker game on October first, and the field for the National League is set: Milwaukee awaits the winner of Chicago versus Colorado, and the Braves will go out to California.

Freddie unrolls a map of the United States on one of the clubhouse bulletin boards, takes a dart he pilfered from some bar, and thumps it, menacingly, right into _Los Angeles_.

*** 

October fourth.

Even though he’s been here once before, Ronnie isn’t sure if he actually _likes_ Los Angeles or not. He likes the bright-lights-and-bigger-stage feel of it, the architecture, the nice weather, the palm trees. He likes being somewhere that isn’t Georgia for a few days. He doesn’t like the uneasy, foreboding feeling he has, but he isn’t sure if that’s _Los Angeles_ itself, or if that’s just normal before the first game of the NLDS. He has no frame of reference.

He absolutely doesn’t like the traffic. Traffic on the bus from the airport, traffic outside the hotel; the honking; the road that might be a freeway and might be a parking lot; the smog. They have to leave four hours early to get to Dodger stadium, which Ronnie swears is only a couple miles away.

He’s a complicated jumble of nerves and somehow sleeps through all of it, his head rolling onto Ozzie’s shoulder as he reads a magazine.

And then they run into Hyun-jin Ryu, who is judge and jury, but mostly just _executioner_.

The Braves can’t do a thing offensively. Folty is no match for these guys, all playing as if they are possessed, with the hometown crowd screaming and jeering and _salivating_ every time the Baby Braves strike out, and they _strike out_.

They can’t even push someone across home plate by sheer randomness, and the Braves get shut out.

Ronnie and Ozzie never have separate hotel rooms. The people who arrange this stuff know that there are some things that simply don’t change.

It’s around 10PM. Ronnie’s looking down, out the window, observing the streetlights and taillights of the rest of the world for a few minutes, trying to push the last six hours out of his mind.

They lost his first playoff game, and naturally, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Comedy Central.” Ozzie says somewhere behind him. “What channel?” 

Ronnie shrugs, steps away, pulls the curtains closed. There are two beds in the room, but he settles down next to Ozzie on his bed. Ozzie fiddles with the remote, turns the volume down, and flops backwards as he exhales. Ronnie watches his chest rise and fall under his soft grey t-shirt.

“We got it tomorrow, Ron. _Really._ Next couple days, you hit a grand slam.”

_Ronnie believes him. Or, he wants to._

The next day, they run into Clayton Kershaw.

It’s even worse than the first game. Eight more innings of swinging and missing, gloves thrown in exasperation, Brian on the phone to the bullpen a bunch of times - it goes about as sideways as it possibly could. By the end of the eighth, the Atlanta dugout is a landfill of discarded candy bar wrappers and peanut shells. Brian’s on his fourth cup of coffee, Ender and Johan are having a screaming fit of an argument, and Anibal doesn’t seem to even know where he is, sitting alone in the corner with his eyes glazed over from being pulled after four innings.

The Braves manage three hits. Two of them are Ronnie’s. They get shut out, _again_ , and all they can do at the end of the night, now on the verge of elimination, is _retreat_.

Tonight, Ozzie is just sitting on the bed silently with his head in his hands. Ronnie tries to break him out of it, even going so far as to toss a pillow at him, but it doesn’t work, _because Ozzie is replaying everything in his head. And praying, Ronnie guesses._

“Shit, what if we don’t make it?” He finally says after what seems like six days, and Ronnie’s immediately over there sitting next to him.

“We’ll make it.”

“But what if we actually _don’t?_ ”

Ronnie wraps his arms around Ozzie from behind, and, as it has so many times before, Ozzie’s hand finds his.

“We’ll make it, Ozzie. _Lo sé._ ” Ronnie hugs him tighter, squeezing his hand. He says a few more sweet things in Spanish, and rests his chin in Ozzie’s hair, smoothing down a couple short flyaway strands.

Five minutes of silence, and they sit frozen, just like _that_. It’s dark. The air conditioner clicks on. Ozzie’s breathing is slow. Ronnie’s is slower, wavering, but everything in his head is fast and intense. Ozzie lets himself start fall to the side, and Ronnie leans into it with him, not letting go, until they are both lying down.

Ronnie talks first, although it’s barely audible, against the back of his teammate’s head.

“Ozhaino?”

“ _Si?_ ”

“Is it okay…okay to lie with you like this? Tonight?”

Ronnie feels Ozzie nod _yes_. _He knew it was a stupid fucking question from the moment he asked._  

***

After two-and-a-half days of embarrassment, Ronnie decides that no, he really doesn’t care for Los Angeles after all, and he’s glad to be home, having left the memory several time zones away.

The attitude is different today. Kurt is almost scarily upbeat. Freddie seems to have amnesia about them being in California at all. Brian is resolute when he addresses them before the game. _Being down 2-0 does not mean we’re about to be eliminated; being down 2-0 means we are still alive to fight, to_ play.

_To be together as a team. To stave off the inevitable creep of winter for one more day._

Ozzie helps Ronnie tape his wrists a couple of minutes before the National Anthem. “You’re going deep today, you hear me?” Ozzie whacks him on the side of the head, having to damn near yell because it’s already _loud as hell_ , and Ronnie can see the determination in his eyes. Ozzie slaps him again. “For us, for all of us, okay?”

“ _Para ti._ ” Ronnie mouths to himself as Brian ushers them all out of the dugout.

The game starts much the same way as the previous few. Sean and Buehler, the Dodgers’ rookie ace, give the game the appearance of a pitching duel based on the first inning and the top of the second. It appears to be a grind, the kind of game that has fans drowning in their beer and the Braves wishing they could do the same.

And then, in the bottom of the second, Nick walks. It’s a borderline call. Buehler shakes his head, but he doesn’t give in, and gets Johan to swing right through a four-seamer.

The bottom of the order: Kurt, Ozzie, Charlie, and then Sean. Ozzie walks out toward the on-deck circle.

Kurt doesn’t have much luck either, waving at ninety-eight, going down in a manner almost identical to Johan.

Ronnie stands and watches, as he _always_ does, when it’s Ozzie’s turn. Buehler throws a couple of barely-missing knuckle curves, and Ronnie’s already looking for tells, any patterns or hitches in Buehler’s delivery, but nothing seems intuitive or even vaguely predictable.

Ozzie gets under a fastball, which flies out almost dead center, but Bellinger, the center fielder, juggles the ball, and Ozzie ends up on second, with Nick on third.

Buehler shakes his head again. The crowd noise becomes more regular, more involved. More people pop off the bench. Charlie is given first without any hesitation; it’s a smart decision, considering Sean’s up next and he’s the dictionary definition of “liability at the plate.”

Ronnie puts on his batting gloves. He catches himself holding his breath.

Then Buehler loses the zone entirely. Another awful call, and three pitches that aren’t even close. Sean trots surprisedly to first. Charlie shrugs and takes second. Ozzie bounces on his toes on third, and Nick walks home. 1-0.

Before Ronnie knows what’s happening, _he’s_ in the box. He closes his eyes for a second, inhales in through his nose, and exhales through his mouth, but it’s not even denting the wall of adrenaline around him. It’s like he can’t even remember how he got here, but here he is, with millions of people watching -twenty years old, bottom of the second, two out, with the bases loaded in an elimination game.

The first pitch is pretty high. The second is far inside and he has to jump a half-step back. He wants to swing, but Buehler is all over the place and Ronnie doesn’t even know where Buehler _wants_ it to be. The third pitch is another high one. Ronnie takes another step back, half-expecting something in the dirt. The fourth is also well above the zone, but it’s called a strike. _It seems Ozzie had been right to bitch about the umpiring this time._

The crowd, every soul in the park, is now _singing_ , all in unison. Ronnie looks over at third, and Ozzie jiggles his hands downward as if to say _turn it down._ _Relax._

Ronnie looks down at his feet, the edges of the box, the angles, the distances. For just a few hundred milliseconds, everything is blank. Buehler goes into his windup, Ronnie squeezes his eyes shut, and he _swings._

He doesn’t know what kind of pitch it even is. He doesn’t need to look. He knows it’s _gone_ by the sound alone. That _glorious_ sound that leads into everything getting louder, and louder, until it’s the _loudest_ moment of Ronnie’s life. He’s out, under the lights, jogging around first, almost suffocating on the swell of emotions.

Ozzie is home first. Ronnie pounds his fist into his chest, twice, and points toward home plate. _Para ti._

And then, just before he gets home, before gets punched and grabbed and mauled and he realizes it’s 5-0 and _he did it_ , he becomes acutely aware of what he always knew.

_He is in love. With this game, this life, his team; this moment._

_And he is in love with Ozzie Albies._

_He is in love with his best friend, and he’s thrilled and intoxicated and terrified all at once. Other than a couple of crushes - high-school stuff - he hadn’t really thought about girls, guys,_ anyone _,_ anything. _Because, since he was able to even_ feel _like that, there was nothing more than studying, training, precision, exactness, and strength, nothing beyond his favorite sport, the one constant that he grew up with._

_Until now._

When he gets to the dugout, Ozzie nearly crushes him in his arms.

_Ronnie can feel it in his spine, coursing, spiraling outward into every breath of him._

The more he thinks about it, the more Ronnie realizes that falling in love is a lot like hitting a grand slam itself. It builds slowly, an intensifying drama of events and characters, and then, when everything is finally pushed into place, _it happens all at once._

_And you just know it._

_***_

The Braves are eliminated the following night.

Ronnie goes from having the best feeling in the world to the worst in a hair under twenty-four hours.

Being eliminated in the playoffs is one of those things that _isn’t going to happen_ until it _does, and then the clarity of it hurts_.

_It’s like he’s been cut, but doesn’t yet realize that he is bleeding._

It happened against Ronnie’s will, his wishes, his consent. He doesn’t want it to be over. He doesn’t want to think of his teammates, wiping their eyes, hugging, and taking a few shots around someone’s locker. He doesn’t want to remember Brian biting his lip and going “ _Oh, well_.” to _hide_ everything. He won’t think about the Dodgers celebrating on his home field, the last out, the close-but-not-close-enough. He can’t imagine what will be in the papers and on Twitter tomorrow.

He doesn’t want to remember that he went _0-for-fucking-5 and then made a preposterous error. He doesn’t want it._

But it happens anyway.

Ronnie lets himself into Ozzie’s apartment. It’s quiet, and the thermostat is set a bit too high, and its mostly dark, except for the sliver of dim light coming from Ozzie’s bedroom at the end of the hall.

He doesn’t knock, doesn’t ask; Ronnie simply pushes the door open, finds Ozzie lying in bed, helps him sit up, and he _holds_ him.

“I’m so sorry-” Ronnie starts, “Sometimes I really can’t hit for shit-” Ronnie thinks he means it as a _joke_ , a little levity on a night that could desperately use it, but he can barely stutter out the words before he realizes hat he’s going to cry.

_He can’t actually remember the last time he cried._ _He didn’t cry in Gwinnett. He didn’t cry after spring training. He didn’t even cry when he thought his elbow was broken._

But Ronnie lets himself cry now, the tears welling in his eyes and stinging his face, and soon he’s sobbing, shaking silently against Ozzie, choking out the same apology again.

“Shh…you were _so_ good.” Ozzie whispers, when he finally pulls away, the grip of one of his hands firm on Ronnie’s shoulder. He reaches up and traces the path of the tears down Ronnie’s face, wiping them away with soft swipes of his thumbs. “So good, Ron.” His fingers ghost along Ronnie’s cheek, and then he opens up his hand, the heat from his palm soothing against Ronnie’s jawline.

“Mi _Hermanito_.” Ozzie says, smiling up at him, a hint of breathiness in his voice. Ronnie is still struggling, fighting more tears and failing, heavy with a mixture of sadness and now this _overwhelming_ tenderness.

Ronnie covers Ozzie’s hand with his own, and falls forward. He lets their foreheads touch, lets their noses bump a little, and then he turns his head, feeling Ozzie’s face against his, the gentle scrape of Ozzie’s beard against his cheekbone. There is so much he could say, so much he _wants_ to say, but he’s been rendered completely unable to speak.

Instead, he lifts his chin and touches his lips to the corner of Ozzie’s mouth. It’s soft, innocent, perfect in its not-quite-perfection.

He can’t even move away fully before Ozzie’s holding him in place by a fistful of his hair, his thumb stroking the contour of Ronnie’s lower lip. Despite being a bit bloodshot, Ozzie’s deep brown eyes are _beautiful_ , alluring, and there’s the hint of a flush just visible beneath his dark skin, and he can’t seem to talk much either.

And then Ozzie kisses him back. It starts much the same way, hesitant and clumsy, but soon it’s slow, and deep, and so _agonizingly_ sweet that Ronnie is crying, just _crying_ , because he can feel it _everywhere_ like he’s never felt anything before.

Ronnie breaks away, and Ozzie kisses him under his chin. “ _Te amo_.” He says over, and _over_ , punctuated by kisses down Ronnie’s neck. “ _Te amo_.”

Ozzie pulls the collar of Ronnie’s shirt aside, and kisses him, _hard_ , in the hot, sensitive spot where his neck meets his collarbone. “ _Te amo_ -” and then his voice goes softer, lower still, “- _Eres muy amado._ ”

_“Te quiero.”_ Ozzie’s breath is hot in the hollow of his throat, his hands under the hem of his shirt, and all Ronnie can do is make a sort of high, bitten-off whine, a sound that he didn’t even _know_ he was capable of making. “I mean-“ Ozzie tries to find the words. “-Only if you _want…._ ”

Being eliminated is brutal, reckless, _merciless_ ; perhaps the most _loveless_ thing in the entire world.

Ronnie pulls his shirt over his head, stretches out, and turns off the one remaining light in the bedroom 

And he lets Ozzie _love_ him.

***

Someone, Ender, or maybe Dansby, told him once that it’s normal to dream after a loss.

Those key moments, like watching your pitcher slam his glove down after giving up a home run, run on repeat like the play button is broken somewhere. Sometimes it’s more inchoate, just movement and shifting shadow, but the _concepts_ are still there. Sometimes it’s normal to even dream that you’ve _won_ instead.

The first night of the off-season, Ronnie doesn’t dream at all. In part because Ozzie’s bed is that comfortable, and in part because he is just _that_ tired, a sponge wrung dry of all its feeling.

When Ronnie wakes up, it’s well into morning, and the second thing on his mind is _well, shit, we got eliminated_.

A thought, of course, that is blunted considerably by the first thing on his mind.

Ozzie is draped half across him, warm and heavy, his arm around Ronnie’s waist, resting his head just under where Ronnie’s ribs meet his stomach. His hair is a mess, his mouth slack from sleep, with the side of his face resting on Ronnie’s bare skin.

The blankets are disheveled, and Ozzie’s wearing only his boxers and two of his thin gold necklaces, which have become tangled. Ronnie skims his eyes over him, pushes his head back into the pillow, and draws out a long, contented sigh.

Ronnie watches him for a while, and loses some time, one finger brushing over the intricate ink on Ozzie’s forearm. He lets that same finger wander all over, over Ozzie’s nose, down his face, and then he pokes Ozzie right between the eyes. Ozzie grunts and shifts on top of him.

Eventually, Ozzie opens his eyes. There’s a half-second of recognition and _acknowledgement_ , and then he smiles.

“You _snore_ , _cabrón_.”

Ronnie wishes he had some sharp comeback, but he just chuckles a little and pulls Ozzie upwards, into a more complete embrace.

“I’m hungry.” Ozzie says, a couple minutes later. “You should go get us something.”

“Why me?" 

There’s a second where Ozzie looks up toward the ceiling, and he wrinkles his face and relaxes into a smile again. “I got a hit last night. You didn’t.”

Ronnie slaps him on the side of the head, and Ozzie pretends that he’s hurt and exaggeratedly tackles Ronnie, who then pulls the blankets up over both of them.

There’s a bit of rearranging under the sheet, and discomfited wrestling, and muffled laughter, and Ronnie kisses him, enjoying the rather stupid simplicity of everything.

There is intimacy in simplicity, and familiarity in intimacy, and it’s the _familiarity_ that really gets Ronnie.

He loves Ozzie, and Ozzie loves him, and Ozzie is his _best friend_ , and that - and not the playoffs, not the rings, or the pennants, or the consequences, or even the game itself - is all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Um. 
> 
> Even if you hate the Braves, Google them; get to know them. It will make your day. Really.
> 
> And, uh, most of this really DID happen (most of the specific pranks, the socks, the head rubs, the kisses on the wrist, the hand-holding, the hit-by-pitch, the grand slam, their hobby of conversing in Spanish, Ronnie being a messy roommate, the AAA slump from hell, the late-night-call-up to the majors, and other things I probably missed). My telling of it, the implications thereof, and the ending, other than the Braves getting eliminated, are fictional. 
> 
> My Spanish is also terrible. Apologies. No beta, so any stupidity in either English or Spanish is all my fault.


End file.
